Bahamut

Basic information

Title(s)

Angel of the Seven Heavens[1] Draco Paladin[2] The God of Dragons[3]Grandfather of Dragons [4] King of the Good Dragons[5] Justicemaker[6] The Justice Bringer (as Marduk)[7]Lord of the North Wind[5]Lord of Pure Incantations (as Marduk)[8] The Platinum Dragon[9] The Valiant (as Marduk)[10]

Contents

In his natural form, Bahamut was a massive dragon (approx 180 feet (55m) long) with a tail the same length as his body,[5] with platinum scales tougher than any shield[27] and blue eyes, the exact color of which was hard to specify and may have depended on Bahamut's mood.[5] As Xymor, he was described as a huge dragon wrapped in a scintillating aura of light so brilliant that it was impossible to tell his color.[26]

Myths claimed that the great fortified castle that Bahamut called home was somewhere "behind the east wind" and many scholars believed Bahamut's castle was located on the Elemental Plane of Air.[12] However, "Bahamut's Palace" was actually located on the plane of Celestia.[18] This castle, built entirely from Bahamut's enormous treasure hoard, with walls made of mithral that reflected the eternal light of Celestia like a beacon on the horizon, and with windows composed of huge gemstones inlaid in silver and gold,[29] was protected by Bahamut's seven gold great wyrms.[30]

Bahamut was able to move his castle between the first four layers of Celestia at will. For those friendly to the Platinum Dragon, the palace was an alternative method for traveling the first layers of the plane without using the common paths.[30]

Bahamut was stern and very disapproving of evil, always arguing with Asgorath about his crusade against it. He accepted no excuses for evil acts, and didn't tolerate even minor offenses by evil creatures.[5][31]

In spite of his stance, he was also considered one of the most compassionate beings in the multiverse. He had limitless empathy for the downtrodden, the dispossessed, and the helpless.[5] He usually preferred to polymorph those who had offended him instead of killing them.[31]

By draconic standards, Bahamut was neither vain or desirous of treasure. He valued wisdom, knowledge, prophecies, and songs instead.[31] However, he also pursued viciously (usually sending his champions and followers) those who tried to steal the hoard from his palace as, after all, he was the god of justice.[29]

Bahamut also liked to prove the strength and worthiness of his followers by battling against them in his dragon form, halting the combat when his followers were injured or when they overcame him. However, he was prone to get carried away by his zeal, and had powerful healers on hand in case he had gravely injured one of his followers in those battles.[32][27]

Bahamut spent half of his time traveling Toril in the guise of an old man.[28] In this form, he traveled from one place to another with no apparent purpose and was quick to offer advice, information, or assistance to other travelers he encountered on the road. He always tried to assess the worthiness—viewed through a lens of justice, nobility, and honor—of everyone he met while traveling.[32]

When Bahamut assumed the form of the old man, he was usually accompanied by seven gold great wyrms polymorphed into canaries or some other small animal form,[28][23] always ready to attack anyone foolish enough to threaten their god.[32] Some claimed these wyrms were reincarnations of dead kings, renowned for their sense of justice and returned to life to serve the Platinum Dragon.[28] They advised Bahamut on matters of honor and acted as a jury when the god was judging evildoers—often apprehended by his champions.[32]

He spent the rest of his time holding court in his shining palace on Celestia. Good-aligned clerics and paladins usually took pilgrimages to his castle, seeking to receive the blessings of the Platinum Dragon.[23][32]

Bahamut was ever watchful against the machinations of Tiamat,[31] and never interfered in the affairs of mortal creatures unless his actions could also stop her evil schemes.[23][33] However, when he confronted her, he always took the necessary actions to stop the spread of her influence and to undo whatever damage she had done.[34]

Bahamut was unable to turn his back on any good creatures that were in need, however, even if Tiamat wasn't involved. But he preferred to help them in indirect ways, such as giving them useful information, needed advice that bordered on prophecy, a safe refuge, or healing and bolstering them with his powerful magic.[34][35]

Bahamut disdained combat, and he preferred to talk with his opponents and convince them to surrender using his legendary diplomatic skills.[36] Despite this, he was easily capable of defending himself.[28]

Along with all the standard powers and godly senses of a deity of his rank, those who saw him fight claimed that he had two breath weapons, one a powerful cone of cold, the other a vapor that turned his enemies into gaseous forms. A third special attack was his roar, which was so powerful that it could disintegrate creatures or objects within 100 feet (30 meters). If facing off against more powerful creatures, this roar would still permanently deafen those who weren't turned to dust.[28] On top of that he was more powerful than any mortal dragon,[27] and was also reputed to know every arcane and divine spell.[28]

For ages, sages debated whether Bahamut actually was a deity or not. Many believed he was the archetype of good dragonkind, the avatar of another deity, or even a mortal dragon so powerful that other dragons revered him like a god. Whatever he was, sages knew for certain that he was powerful, was venerated by many good dragons as their king, and was even respected by evil ones.[12][33]

An earlier holy symbol of Bahamut, before becoming a member of the Faerûnian pantheon.

The fact is that Bahamut was actually a god. He came into existence alongside the rest of the draconic pantheon when the first dragons born,[12] although in those ancient times he was known as Xymor by his dragon followers.[6] His origins were highly conflicting, however, as there were many accounts about how he came into being. In the more commonly accepted traditions, he was the son of Asgorath and brother of Tiamat and Null;[6] while in the traditions of gold dragon society he was believed to be the son of Lendys and Tamara.[26] Myths from the dragonborn of Abeir claimed instead that Bahamut and Tiamat were born from the sundered corpse of Io (the name by which dragonborn knew Asgorath) when he was killed in the Dawn War.[37]

Whatever the truth, his cult grew rapidly in the communities of metallic dragons, especially among young gold dragons.[26]

Once dragons as a race had established themselves during the Time of Dragons,[38] the various religious factions of dragons began to battle one another over their different ideologies, in what is known as the Draco Holy Wars.[26] Among those conflicts, there was one related to Bahamut that divided the usually monolithic gold dragon culture. As the precepts of Bahamut became more popular, the younger golds began to forsake the worship of Lendys and Tamara, whom they regarded as old-fashioned and inconsistent, to embrace the faith of the Platinum Dragon,[26] an attitude that put them at odds with older gold dragons, who worshiped those two dragon gods with fanatical devotion.[39] Although this conflict never degenerated into outright violence, religious intolerance became quite widespread among gold dragons, something that had no precedent until that time and never happened since.[39]

Over time, religious fervor waned and draconic philosophers came to the conclusion that gods who allowed such behavior were not worthy of their worship. This started the draconic apathy towards their gods which lasted for thousands of years. The followers of Bahamut and Tiamat didn't lose their faith toward their gods, however, and continued fighting in what was known as the Dragonfall War.[38]

To combat Tiamat's aberrant creations, Bahamut created powerful draconic humanoids known as the dragonborn of Bahamut, who served as his emissaries in the mortal realm during the first years of the war.[40][41] The dragonborn of Bahamut were somehow related to those dragonborn native to Abeir; however, how they were related was a secret known only by a few older dragons.[42]

The war waxed and waned in intensity, with the last era of intense fighting occurring between −2087 and −1071 DR.[11] It was during this time that the Untheric empire began and with it, their pantheon became prominent. Bahamut became part of that pantheon by taking the alias of Marduk, one of the Untheric greater deities. A second front in the Dragonfall War opened and the two dragon gods fought each other personally, with neither being able to gain the upper hand.[11]

In −1071 DR, in a battle of the Orcgate Wars known as the Battle of the Gods, while Gilgeam fought with Ilneval, Tiamat saw her chance to strike, but before she could kill the God-king, Marduk intervened and killed her, saving Gilgeam's life at the expense of his own. With both of their Untheric aspects dead, Tiamat and Bahamut were both stripped of their divine power. Marduk's church was eradicated and Bahamut was reduced to the status of Celestial paragon.[11]

He was forced to stay like this, without enough followers to worship him as a god, living in the upper planes[2] or wandering the material plane, doing whatever good he could[12] Then, in 1359 DR, Gareth Dragonsbane and his companions returned from the Abyss after destroying the Wand of Orcus. They brought with them the Tree-Gem, which Bahamut had given back to them as a sign of his covenant to protect Damara from demons. The Tree-Gem brought renewed interest from non-dragons in the worship of Bahamut as a god, and as he gained new followers, and he was able to restore his deific status as a lesser deity once again.[43] However, at some point before 1373 DR, Bahamut was trapped in an ancient prison somehow related to the Dracorage mythal.[44]

In 1373 DR, after the destruction of Sammaster and the end of the High Magic that sustained the Dracorage mythal, Bahamut was able to free himself from his prison and reappeared in Celestia, and soon after launched an invasion ofo Tiamat's demesne in Dragon Eyrie.[44]

With the renewed faith in him, Bahamut began preparing for a renewal of the Dragonfall War as Tiamat had regained her status as a lesser deity thirteen years prior. He gifted his most devout followers with the ability to turn themselves into dragonborn of Bahamut, so that the war could continue between mortals again.[43] The destruction of the Dracorage mythal also heralded the prophesied "Turning of the Great Cycle", which sparked off the religious fervor lacking in dragons since the beginning of the Dragonfall War.[45]

In 1374 DR, lightning and meteor showers pounded Faerûn, and Bahamut and Tiamat instructed their respective followers to seek out such sites as they would each contain some form of dragon egg. Unfortunately for Bahamut, Tiamat's followers were much more effective in retrieving the eggs than his own.[45]

Afterwards, Bahamut became part of the Faerûnian pantheon when Torm promoted him to the same position Torm once occupied while serving Tyr, becoming a temporary member of the Triad,[47] replacing Tyr until his return after the Second Sundering.[48] He also gained a few followers among the dragonborn of Tymanther.[49]

Bahamut was a servant deity to Torm, occupying an equivalent position to that of a knight.[47] As a comrade of arms of Torm, both deities had battled side-by-side against evil gods and devils on many occasions.[52]

Bahamut's antithesis was Tiamat,[11] as both of them represented opposing values,[37] and this enmity was reflected in the attitude of each deity's worshipers as well.[5] He was also at odds with his brother Null.[53]

The majority of Bahamut's worshipers prior to the Spellplague were mostly metallic dragons. While he was revered by all good dragons, gold, silver, and brass dragons held him in particularly high regard.[33]

His worship grew in the decades following the Time of Troubles, when he regained his divine status, as non-dragons began to take interest in his teachings.[43] When he became a subservient deity to Torm, after the Spellplague, many Tormites also paid homage to Bahamut as well, and it wasn't uncommon for both gods to lend their strength to worshipers of either deity at the same time.[54]

Followers of Bahamut often took quests to oppose the schemes of Tiamat and to stop or destroy her followers.[36] They were allies of worshipers of Torm,[54]Moradin, Yondalla, and other lawful good deities.[36]

Bahamut accepted only clerics of good alignments. Whether they were dragons, dragonborn, half-dragons, or other beings attracted to his philosophy, clerics of the Platinum Dragon always had to strive to take constant but subtle actions on behalf of good while trying to do as little harm in the process as possible.[33]

Non-draconic clerics of Bahamut typically learned his teachings at the foot of a wyrm, usually a gold or silver dragon in humanoid form. Teacher and student often traveled to see the effects of injustice and cruelty firsthand.[55]

The Talons of Justice was an order of dragon paladins dedicated to Bahamut that followed the Ptarian Code.[56] No one knew exactly how many Talons there were, but the group probably numbered in the scores. Group members were spread throughout Faerûn, many living in human and demihuman form in cities and towns of other races.[57]

The Platinum Cadre was an order of dragonborn knights from Tymanther who believed that not all dragons were evil, and that dragonborn were the ancient children of Bahamut. They worked actively to change Tymantheran prejudices about dragons, and although they were ridiculed by Tymantheran society, they were also acknowledged as some of the best warriors Tymanther had to offer, even if grudgingly.[50][58]

Temples to Bahamut were extremely rare, as the Platinum Dragon didn't appreciate being honored by objects, taking into account deeds instead. Many gold, silver, and brass dragons maintained small shrines to Bahamut in their lairs, usually nothing more than Bahamut's holy symbol engraved on a wall.[36]

The few temples that were made to honor him were beautiful and elegant buildings with simple furniture and no embellishment or adornment. Those temples had meeting rooms where followers could gather to plan their next campaign against Tiamat, and few smaller rooms where individuals could pray, meditate, or rest in privacy.[36]

Bahamut's dogma was based on justice, nobility, protection, and honor. He taught his followers to always uphold the highest ideals of honor and justice; to be constantly vigilant against evil and to oppose it from all fronts; and to protect the weak, liberate the oppressed, and defend just order.[19] Bahamut advocated a "greater justice" that included fighting against evil and toppling oppressive regimes.[3] He also liked to reward strength of purpose and character in his followers.[59]

His dragon adepts followed the Ptarian Code,[56] a draconic code of honor created by the gold dragon Ptaris in the ancient past. Originally intended as a code of conduct for the lords who attended the King of Justice, the Ptarian Code eventually was adopted by many gold and silver dragons.[57] The Ptarian Code was similar to the codes of chivalry adopted by knightly orders of humanity. It included paying homage to Bahamut, as well to the draconic deities Lendys and Tamara.[57] The major precepts were:

Justice and Good above all.

Honor and Fealty to the King.

Honor and Respect to Righteous Innocence.

Honor and Duty to the Balancer (Lendys), to Her Mercy (Tamara), and to the Justicemaker (Bahamut).

Bahamut's worshipers and clergy had no formal rituals or ceremonies. Those who followed the Platinum Dragon believed in the philosophy of "praying through their deeds". The only activity that was considered as something like a ritual was the Rite of Rebirth, the magical process by which non-dragon humanoids transformed themselves into dragonborn.[36]